Content is king as they say, and most marketers would agree that they are awash with it these days. Yet, there is content, and then there is great content. It has to be memorable and impactful – and that can only happen with the latter. Gabriel Altbach recently shared his recommendations on how to create great content at the Money Management Institute (MMI) Annual Conference, where he kicked off the marketing track. Read on for a summary of his comments.
Have a formal editorial committee
Form a concentrated and focused editorial committee. Ideally, limit the size of this committee to five people and make sure that you have support from the CEO and CIO. Its role is not just about charting the course for the upcoming quarters but to also act as a review mechanism. Take a hard look at the analytics and measurement from past thought leadership campaigns and have that shape your decisions.
Create content that challenges people
Avoid content that is telling your audience (advisors, consultants, plan sponsors) what you think they want to hear. Instead, come up with content that is going to truly challenge the way they think. If you can own a little bit of their mental shelf space, by having caused them to think differently about something they thought they had down, you will have earned the right to position products and capabilities down the road. This is crucial to grow the top of that funnel and expand your firm’s reach. Attracting new clients is different than updating existing ones about the portfolios they already own.
Cluster your content around a theme
Your content does not have to be that single monolithic whitepaper. Make sure it’s out, and here’s why. Writing content around a theme will better serve your campaigns when you push it to your audiences. Plus, it can help generate better search results in search engines. A win-win for everyone.
Measure and compare
Without measurement, it is difficult to know what content to prioritise. Certainly, in the absence of anything else, measure against your own history. Track how a given piece of content or a campaign is generating engagement versus your past analytics. Better, though, is to try to look outside your own firm. Take an industry perspective and do not get stuck within the four walls of your organisation. Reach out to fellow CMOs and Heads of Marketing. More often than not you will find that they will be thrilled to compare downloads and click throughs. If you need to reach out to an agency to do that for you, then do so. Do whatever facilitates you being able to measure your content’s impact.
Give your analytics commercial ‘teeth’
Be sure to come up with commercially-relevant analytics for your content campaigns – don’t rely on the ‘vanity metrics’ we marketers sometimes fall in love with. Analyse the AUM delta for the targeted campaign cohort, or change in net sales, or cross-sell success metrics. Of course, it takes prep work and foresight to set all that up in advance, not least coming up with an excluded control group of advisors that is both demographically consistent with the targeted ones, as well as statistically significant. That way, you’ll be speaking the language of the CEO, CFO and Head of Distribution – a.k.a. the folks with all the money!
With these 5 tips, I do believe we can make our content king.